![]() The actual papyrus of which this is a photograph exists in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin-pages of it are on show in the exhibition cases there. It is dated by experts around about AD 200, so it is now eighteen hundred years old. Secondly, I circulate it because of the great age of this papyrus. You may well have seen it before, but I want you to see, firstly, the actual kind of thing we’re talking about when we talk of Bible manuscripts. I want to circulate among you now a photograph of an ancient papyrus. In humid climates papyrus would soon crumble away. Later on, copies of Scripture were written on parchment, or vellum-the skins of animals, which is much more lasting than papyrus. The reed was cut, then it was sliced and the thin slices put together and glued, often with the muddy, sticky water of the Nile. In the first days Scripture was written by hand the New Testament in particular tended to be written on papyrus, a reed that grows by the Nile in Egypt. We shall eventually see that the New Testament possesses the same equal authority, on the same grounds-‘All Scripture is breathed out by God.’ It is, then, in that conviction that I personally talk to you about the way Scripture has been transmitted I believe one hundred per cent in the divine inspiration of holy Scripture. In the context Paul is referring to Old Testament Scripture. Here is Scripture talking about itself:Īll Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. So we begin by thinking about the manuscripts- what was written by hand. It has been somewhat overtaken by these modern devices, called by sundry names, in which you don’t handle a book, you look at a screen. It was only after centuries had gone by that printing was invented and came to be the means of repeating and distributing Scripture. ![]() Now, scripture literally means ‘what is written’, and for around fourteen hundred years the New Testament was written out by hand and all those handwritten copies are referred to as manuscripts, which is the Latin term for ‘written script’, manu, by hand. The topic for this week’s seminars and then the next one is to be Scripture-holy Scripture, that is. It is wonderfully good to be back with you once again. 1: Manuscript Evidence for the Text of the New Testament ![]()
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